This page assumes that you will be using it for additional reference to [[Beginners Guide]] and [[Acer Aspire One]]. Note that this netbook does '''not''' come with Recovery CDs.

This page assumes that you will be using it for additional reference to [[Beginners Guide]] and [[Acer Aspire One]]. Note that this netbook does '''not''' come with Recovery CDs.

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Not losing Android, as far as I understand, requires some effort on your part. Here is the gist: do '''NOT''' install the bootloader to the MBR but to the partition where you installed Arch.

Not losing Android, as far as I understand, requires some effort on your part. Here is the gist: do '''NOT''' install the bootloader to the MBR but to the partition where you installed Arch.

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'''Caution:''' '''You always risk losing data when you are moving or resizing a partition. Don't start the procedure if you do not have a back up, are not sure whether e-recovery (alt+f10 while booting) may work (I don't know if this model has it), do not have recovery CDs ($20 from Acer, does not come with the netbook), or just don't want to risk it.'''

+

'''Caution:''' '''You always risk losing data when you are moving or resizing a partition. Don't start the procedure if you do not have a back up, are not sure whether e-recovery (alt+f10 while booting) may work (I do not know if this model has it), do not have recovery CDs ($20 from Acer, does not come with the netbook), or just do not want to risk it.'''

===Details===

===Details===

Revision as of 12:30, 23 April 2012

This page assumes that you will be using it for additional reference to Beginners Guide and Acer Aspire One. Note that this netbook does not come with Recovery CDs.

Wired and Wireless Networking

Bluetooth

Works out of the box (don't forget to turn it on using the bluetooth button). See Bluetooth.

Not Losing Android

Quick Review

Not losing Android, as far as I understand, requires some effort on your part. Here is the gist: do NOT install the bootloader to the MBR but to the partition where you installed Arch.

Caution:You always risk losing data when you are moving or resizing a partition. Don't start the procedure if you do not have a back up, are not sure whether e-recovery (alt+f10 while booting) may work (I do not know if this model has it), do not have recovery CDs ($20 from Acer, does not come with the netbook), or just do not want to risk it.

Details

When you first turn on your AOD-250 (d250 with android), you will see that it has three partitions:

/dev/sda1 -> "Compaq Diagnostic" (ie System Recovery partition)

/dev/sda2 -> NTFS (Windows XP)

/dev/sda3 -> FAT32 (Android)

I am not quite sure how, but the boot process is initially handled by Acer's tools, not Windows XP's bootloader (NTLDR). In fact, ubuntu's Gparted version identifies this tool as a hidden Windows Vista bootloader. Acer's tool first looks at whether you want (set up) Android to start. If you did, it starts Android up. If you chose Xindows XP, it tells NTLDR to load Windows XP up. So, as far as I understand, if you install another bootloader to the MBR, you lose Android (I did not try it though -I didn't want to take the risk).

So here is what I did:

1. Boot using Ubuntu LiveCD USB (because it had an up to date gparted at time of this writing) to:

shrink Windows' partition to 20G

move /dev/sda3 right after /dev/sda2, so that when I create new partitions, the partition number (sda3) will not change.

create new partitions for Arch installation

2. Install Arch as usual, but tell it to install bootloader to the partition where Arch was installed. In other words, if you install Arch to /dev/sda6, choose /dev/sda6 as the place to install grub when it asks you.

3. Boot with Ubuntu LiveCD USB again to copy the bootloader to a usb disk. If you installed Arch to /dev/sda6:

dd if=/dev/sda6 of=/path/to/usb/drive/arch.mbr bs=512 count=1

The name of the file should have less than 7 characters, follow DOS file name limitations (keep it simple).

5. Edit Windows' bootloader to add Arch to NTLDR's list of operating systems that can be booted up. Open up Windows' terminal window and

cd \
attrib -s -h -r BOOT.INI
notepad BOOT.INI

and add a line at the end of that file, like this:

c:\arch.mbr="Arch Linux"

and finish the edit by saving the file and fixing its attributes again

attrib +s +h +r BOOT.INI

6. Have Arch be the default OS to boot for NTLDR: use msconfig to set the default entry (find the BOOT.INI tab, click on the line that says, for example, c:\arch.mbr="Arch Linux", and click on "Set as Default". You may also want to change the time out value for NTLDR, see http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/bootini.htm which has nice screenshots on various things to do with the bootloader.

CPUFREQ and Wrong CPU Freq Reporting

When you load acpi-cpufreq to do cpu frequency scaling, the maximum CPU speed becomes 1.33GHz instead of 1.66Ghz. There is no workaround for this at time of writing except not using said module, which is not helpful in terms of saving power (battery life for the session). See https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/cpufreqd/+bug/422858

Mounting Android from Linux as a Loop Device

This section requires someone to elaborate on what really is happening here.

Assuming that Android is in your /dev/sda3 partition and that you have an fstab entry that mounts Androids partition as a vfat filesystem to a folder called /android, I think you mount Android as a loopback device when you do: